Tech - Azzet - Business news, investments companies & executives

Sign inJoin Now

Tech

Tech
Amazon beats cloud forecasts on AI demand
Amazon exceeded Wall Street expectations for cloud computing growth in the second quarter and raised its annual capital expenditure forecast, signalling that strong demand for artificial intelligence services continues to support its aggressive infrastructure investment. Shares of the Seattle-based technology and e-commerce giant jumped more than 9% in after-hours trading before easing to trade about 8% higher, following a 3.9% gain during the regular session. The company reported earnings per share of $5.75, well above expectations of $1.82. Revenue came in at $200.61 billion, ahead of the consensus estimate of $197.03 billion. Revenue from Amazon Web Services (AWS) climbed 37% to $42.2 billion in the quarter ended 30 June, comfortably exceeding analysts' expectations for growth of 31.21%. “AWS is booming, growing 36.7% year-over-year in Q2—our fastest growth in 18 quarters—and our AI and Chips businesses each eclipsed run rates of more than $25 billion,” said Andy Jassy, President and CEO, Amazon. “In Stores, we again set record delivery speeds for Prime members in the first half of the year—over 40% more items delivered same-day or overnight, with Grocery and Everyday Essentials growing meaningfully faster than the
Tech
Microsoft jumps as AI demand lifts revenue outlook
Microsoft shares surged 9% in extended trading on Wednesday (Thursday AEST) after the software giant reported stronger-than-expected fiscal fourth-quarter results and maintained its 2026 capital spending plans, citing continued demand across its portfolio. The company reported adjusted earnings per share of US$4.74, beating expectations of $4.24, while revenue came in at $90.01 billion compared with forecasts of $87.62 billion. Microsoft’s revenue increased about 18% year over year in the quarter ended 30 June, while net income rose to $35.77 billion, or $4.81 per share, from $27.23 billion, or $3.65 per share, a year earlier. The company said results were boosted by a $3.2 billion gain from its investment in artificial intelligence firm Anthropic and lower-than-expected costs linked to its first voluntary retirement programme. Its Xbox gaming business, however, received an impairment charge. Microsoft said commercial remaining performance obligations, which measure unearned and unrecognised revenue, increased 8% to US$678 billion from the previous quarter, driven by commitments from clients outside AI model developers. Capital expenditure and finance leases reached US$41 billion during the quarter, up 69%. Micro
Tech
Alphabet tops estimates but raises AI spending
Alphabet reported stronger-than-expected second-quarter results on Wednesday, driven by rapid growth in its cloud business, but Class A shares fell 3.2% in extended trading after the Google parent lifted its 2026 capital expenditure forecast as it accelerates investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure. The company reported earnings per share of US$9.11, well ahead of expectations for $2.88, while revenue rose to $119.8 billion, beating the $117.07 billion expected. Growth was supported by an 82% surge in Google Cloud revenue as businesses continued increasing AI-related spending. However, investors focused on Alphabet's higher spending outlook. The company now expects 2026 capital expenditure of $195 billion to $205 billion, up from its previous forecast of $180 billion to $190 billion. Finance chief Anat Ashkenazi said demand for AI computing capacity continues to outstrip supply. “We’re still in a supply-constrained environment. I think we’ve said this now for multiple quarters in a row, and we are seeing very strong demand both from external cloud customers as well as across the business.” Alphabet said its Gemini application now has 950 million monthly active users and is capable of processing 22 bi
Tech
SMCI margins surge on SpaceXAI orders
Super Micro Computer (NASDAQ: SMCI) surged 7.0% to close at US$25.50 during Tuesday's United States deals, before rallying a further 19% in extended trade after disclosing it collected more than $60 billion in new orders during Q4, a haul that dwarfs the backlog investors had priced in ahead of formal earnings. The company also lifted its gross margin outlook to a range of 15% to 17%, nearly double the 8.2% to 8.4% band management had guided to in May - a revision it attributed to a more favourable customer and product mix. SMCI chief executive Charles Liang tied the surge to work with SpaceXAI, the entity Elon Musk formed when SpaceX completed its all-stock acquisition of xAI in February, and fully absorbed the AI unit by early July. Liang told investors the partnership now anchors a new wave of gigawatt-scale AI data centre builds, a claim that helped explain why the margin revision landed as it did. Rivals felt the updraft too, with Dell Technologies climbing 5% and Hewlett Packard Enterprise adding 4% in extended trading, as the update reinforced accelerating demand across the AI server supply chain. Revenue for the June quarter is expected to land at the low end of Super Micro's previously issued $11-12.5 billi
Tech
Uber to buy Delivery Hero for US$14.3bn - FT
Uber Technologies is reportedly close to announcing a deal to buy Delivery Hero for about €12.5 billion ($14.3 billion). The American ride hailing and delivery company was expected to offer about €41 per share under the acquisition to be announced on Thursday, according to the Financial Times (FT) newspaper. The German food delivery company said on Tuesday it was in "advanced negotiations" with Uber regarding a potential takeover offer but the FT story on Wednesday was the first time the terms had been reported. Under the proposed transaction, Delivery Hero would address anti-trust concerns by selling its Turkish subsidiary Yemeksepeti and several European operations to an investment firm, according to this Reuters story. This proposed acquisition, one of the largest consolidation deals in the global online food delivery sector, follows months of speculation over the future of the Berlin-based and Frankfurt-listed Delivery Hero. Uber, which operates in food delivery through its Uber Eats business, had made an offer in May that valued Delivery Hero at about €10 billion. Delivery Hero has built one of the world's largest food delivery networks through acquisitions and organic expansion, while Uber has continued to

Tech
AI chip queue lengthens; TSMC posts 68% revenue leap
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.(NYSE: TSM) posted June revenue of NT$442.68 billion (A$19.85 billion), up 67.9% on the same month last year and 6.2% on May, breaking a seasonal pattern in which June sales have fallen from May in each of the past four years. First-half revenue reached NT$2.4 trillion (US$74.99 billion), a 35.6% rise on the same period in 2025, and the stock added 1% on Monday even as the broader Asia Pacific index slid.Sold out, not selling wellSravan Kundojjala, an analyst at SemiAnalysis, said second-quarter revenue cleared TSMC's own high-end guidance of US$40.2 billion, and described the underlying numbers as robust across the board. He added that the more significant detail is TSMC's N3 process, the node targeted by every leading AI GPU and CPU family this year, is now sold out. Nvidia's Rubin, Google's TPU v7/v8, Amazon's Trainium3 and AMD's MI350X are all converging on the same 3-nanometre lines at the same time, and TSMC's wafer expansion has not kept pace with that combined demand.The packaging squeezeThe tighter constraint sits one step further down the production chain, in advanced packaging rather than in the wafers themselves, where TSMC turns finished chips into deployable products.
Tech
Cerebras doubles revenue, margin guidance drops stock
Artificial intelligence chipmaker Cerebras Systems' debut earnings report delivered strong top-line growth, but an admission that it is renting its own chips back from a UAE customer to meet demand sent investors to the exit. Cerebras (NASDAQ: CBRS) posted revenue that almost doubled in the year to March, but warned margins would contract sharply in the current quarter, triggering a sell-off that wiped roughly US$5 billion from the stock in after-hours trade.First-quarter GAAP revenue came in at $193.4 million, up 94% year-on-year, with cloud and services revenue climbing 178%.Net loss narrowed to $14 million from $23.9 million, or 46 cents per share, a year earlier.The company reported a near break-even core non-GAAP operating loss of $3.5 million and a cash position of $3.3 billion in liquidity.Core gross margin is forecast to fall to between 36% and 38% in Q2, down from 46.5% in the first.During the analyst call, it emerged that Cerebras is temporarily renting its own systems back from an existing customer - believed by analysts on the call to be UAE-linked G42 - because it cannot build data centres fast enough to satisfy demand from its OpenAI and AWS partnerships. Wedbush, which holds an outperform rating on the stock,
Tech
Microsoft, Chevron ink West Texas data centre power deal
Microsoft and Chevron have inked a 20-year commercial agreement to power artificial intelligence infrastructure with the construction of a 2.7GW gas-fired power facility in West Texas known as Project Kilby in the Permian Basin. Kilby will deliver dedicated electricity to a new Microsoft-operated data centre by bypassing the regional grid.Project KilbyThe facility will burn locally sourced natural gas to provide base-load power, and when fully operational, the site will generate enough electricity to supply roughly two million homes. Chevron is partnering with investment firm Engine No. 1 and energy company Joulent to execute the Texas build, expected to cost around $7 billion, with Caterpillar and GE Vernova to supply the gas turbines required. The asset provides Chevron with cash flow separated from the standard fluctuations of global crude prices.Market and timelineMicrosoft needs to scale up compute infrastructure without relying on standard grid connection timelines, and by co-locating the power plant alongside the data centre, the companies are able to sidestep common transmission bottlenecks. A final investment decision from the Chevron board is scheduled for the end of 2026, with operations expected to commence
Tech
Alphabet slides 5% on AI leaks and surging capex
Tech juggernaut Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) dropped over 6% at Monday’s opening bell following high-profile executive departures to rival AI giants, rising infrastructure costs, and a cooling rocket market. The company slid to around US$343 per share in early trading, marking one of its sharpest single-session declines in a year. While the core business remains active - backed by a $460 billion contracted backlog in Google Cloud - near-term market sentiment turned cautious.Brain drain hits homeThe initial sell-off followed news of leadership shifts within the company's research divisions. Investors reacted to reports that John Jumper, Vice President and Engineering Fellow at Google DeepMind, is leaving the firm to join competitor Anthropic. Jumper co-developed the AlphaFold protein-structure model, which earned him a share of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His departure follows closely after another prominent artificial intelligence specialist, Noam Shazeer, returned to OpenAI. For an organization focused on scaling its Gemini and DeepMind systems, losing two cornerstones of its development team in a single week altered near-term projections.Capex spooks the herdRising infrastructure spending also influenced mar